Spray driers as a class are well known. Likewise, burners are widely known for commercial and industrial use in mixing a liquid hydrocarbon fuel with oxygen, air or other oxygen-containing gas; and they are of numerous types and designs. In one type, the fuel is admixed internally with air within the fuel oil burner, the fuel oil often being brought into the burner as a whirling vortex to which air is supplied prior to injection from a nozzle, and ignition. A major deficiency of this type of burner is that the flame burns the combustible mixture at the forward, or ejection end of the burner to produce copious amounts of carbon, or coke. This, of course, not only reduces the thermal efficiency of the burner, but all too soon fouls the burner. Shut down to clean the burner, of course, can produce further losses in process efficiency.
In a burner described by reference to U.S. Pat. No. 1,563,246 oil is supplied to an oil supply tube terminating in an annular oil discharge opening in which is mounted a cone-shaped deflector. The oil supply tube terminates within a mixing chamber secured to an air supply nozzle adapted to direct a stream of air against the outer end of the oil supply tube and deflector to atomize the oil and mix the atomized oil and air within the mixing chamber. In this device the combustible mixture is burned within the mixing chamber to produce copious amounts of carbon, and form coke.